This invention relates to a cassette autochanger suitable for use in a continuous reproduction over achieving long period of time with a number of tape cassettes being selectively transferred in a desired sequence between a cassette container and a video tape recorder.
For example, Japanese Patent Kokai No. 62-241180 discloses a conventional video tape cassette autochanger of this type which includes a plurality of video tape players arranged to reproduce video tape cassettes placed therein in a horizontal posture and cassette containers arranged to contain a number of video tape cassettes placed in a horizontal posture. Such a conventional cassette autochanger is operable with a simple structure for carrying a video tape cassette between one of the tape containers and one of the video tape players. However, the video tapes have their longitudinal edges at one side of the tape held in pressure contact with the respective cassette casings during storage and, because of weight of the wound tape, the tape is damaged when preserved for a long period of time. This is true particularly for cassette autochangers where a number of video tape cassettes are preserved in the cassette containers over a very long period of time. Thus, the conventional cassette autochanger is not suitable for a long-term cassette preservation. A similar discussion is applied to various kinds of tape cassettes other than video tape cassettes.